Unemployment Claims: No Improvement in Months (Media Lies Just Never End)

The numbre of new unemplyment claims (for the previous week) was announced, as usual, on Thursday. REaders of this blog know that the number announced every Thurseday is NOT a concrete number, but an ESTIMATE (seasonally adjusted). In addition, the number is REVISED the succeeding week--almost always UP about 3,000. This does not stop the media LIARSD from "reporting" the UNREVISED number as if it is a solid numbeber.


Thus, last week the media REPORTED that the number of new unempllyment claims announced last week was 351,000. This blog told you that the actual, correct ESTIMMATE (ignoring the 50,000 margin of eroror inherent in the seasonal adjustment) was 354,0000, figuring in the EXPECTED 3,000 REvISIOIN. As usual, this blog was MORE RIGHT than th emedia, making the score: This blog 10,133 Media 0. The Labor Department announced the REVISED number Thursday, and-for a change--this blog was not EXACTLY right. TheREVISED number was 353,000, or a mere 1,000 less than this blog's number. It was 2,000 MORE than the media's number. 3,000 is the most common adjustment.


As usual, the LIARS of the media said that the number of new unemployment claims dropped 5,000 this week (that is, the number announced on Thrusday for the previiuos week, BEFORW REVISION), to 348,000. You being clever enough to read this blog, know that the actual number (best estimate) is 351,000, which is a drop of only 2,000 (even 5,000 being insignificant). This number has stayed approximately the SAME for at least TWO MONTHS now--in a range from 350,000 to 365,000, with the number most often being between 350,m000 and 355,000. As th eheadline says: NO IMPROVEMENT in at least twon months.


To compound their lies, the media ignoried this, and stated how tThrusday's 348,000 was the "lowest number since Feburuary of 20088", as If this was "great " news and a STEADY IMPROVEMENT You, of coure, know that there has been NO IMPROVEMENT in at least tow months. This is actualy a RECYCLING of the LYING hedlines of about six weeks ago (six weeks to two months). That was the week when the REPORTED number on Thursday was that SAME 348,000. And the media used the SAMME headline: how this weas the beest number since February of 2008. The number was REVISED the next week, to 351,000 (which this blog is accurately reporting as the BEST ESTIMATE of what the revised number will be next week). The media nkeeps insisting on comparing the UNREVISED numbers with the REVISED numbers, and that is a LIE. Aginat, and this is not a matter of opiniono, tthis weekly number has NOT IMPROVEMED in two months (in any real sense).


What this blog hHAS told lyou is that the number is SLIGHTLY better than LAST YEAR. Last February, we ereached a low of 375,000 for th eyear. We then DETERIORATED until the fall. Th juryis still out on whether we will rEPEAT that pattern this year. We are repeating it in the sense that there has been NO IMPROVEEMENT for the past two months. However, we have not YET begun to DETE#RIORATE, and the weekly numbers have not only reached a LOWER level than last year's Febu=ruary low of 375,000, but have AVERAGED between 350,000 and 360,000 for these lst two months (something we did not do last Eebruary and March).


Thus, you can say that thhe lweekly number has IMPROVED year over year, although the GOOD WATHER may be enough to entirely explain that. The number has NOT IMROVED in the past two months or so, and it remainss to be detrmined whehter the next move will be UP (woe) , insstead of down (better). For now, we are not getting either worse or better. We are STAYING THE SAME, at a better level than last year but still not a really good number. Remember, we were in teh beginning of a RECESSION in February of 2008.


The media just canot keep from lying about this weekly report of new unemployment claims. This bog will continue to givew you the accurae story.


P./S .No proofreading or spell checking (bad eyesight) . I wonder sometimes: Does it EMBARRASS anyone in the media to use the SAME headline used six weeks or more ago, basedon the very same REPORTED number (while ignroing that you are ding it, because you are comparing an unrevised number with a revised number)? I don't think it does bother them. The media is NOT about FACTS. They are all about agenda, and "interpretation" (no matter how obviously wrong it is,), and they simlly don't care if their FACTS are PROVEN wrong. Will you get a RETRACTION next week if the REVISED number is, indeed, 351,000, as it was six weeks ago when the initial number was 348,000--or, as is possible, if the revised number is 352,000 (an upward revision of 4,000 being fairly common)? Of course not. The media will simply again compare next week's UNREVISED number with this week's REVISED nubmer, an dact like there is not a CONSTANT 3,000 error in the way the media reports these numbers. Notice that if you compare last week's originally REORTED number of 351,000 with this week's intially reported number of 348,000, the "drop" is only 3,000. If lyou are nott going to be a LIAR, you MUST do that (comparing UNREVISED NUMBER WITH UNREVISED NUMBER), or else do what I aahve done and ESTIMATE next week's revised number based on CONSISTENT past history. If past history does hold true, next week's revised number of 351,000 will be eXACTLY the same as what hapened the last time the INITIALLY REPORTED number was 348,000.